The Grains of Time
by OldSkoolCanary
Summary: The war was like a tornado. Ravaging both sides to the point that each would do anything to win. And in a secret cave in a cliff, a certain mad, hat-wearing shinigami was planning to do the impossible. Time Travel fic
1. The Decision

Ichigo stood alone in the vast cavern. His spiky, orange hair and black shihakusho slowly swaying in the breeze blowing from the entrance behind him. His face showed no emotion, only a neutral expression that was more intimidating than his usual scowl. His once bright brown eyes were now dulled with the loss and hardship he had suffered. Far too much for a teenager just approaching manhood.

He had lost everything. His family. His friends. Everything and anything that ever mattered to him was targeted and destroyed. Everything except his two zanpukuto, always at his side ready to protect at a moments notice, and an over-eccentric captain-turned-shopkeeper.

Urahara Kisuke usually kept himself to himself after the deaths of so many people he once called colleagues, comrades and friends. Especially Yoruichi. From what Ichigo could tell, her death had been the one to push old hat-and-clogs over the edge. Nowadays he just locked himself in his lab' and worked on who knows what.

They were the only ones left, the only hope for the soul society that lay in ruins. They knew it was a lost cause, that there was no point in keeping fighting. But they couldn't stop, if they did, everyone's deaths would have been in vain.

Ichigo shook his head to rid himself of these thoughts; last time he had succumbed to the numbness inside him, he didn't do anything for a month. That month, was when his friends died. All of them. They had been out on a routine mission, go to the front lines, kill some hollows, return. Except for the fact that, that bastard Aizen had decided to make a move. He had gotten tired of the slow, 'boring' pace of the war. So he found out where the 'routine mission' was going and left a little... Surprise for them. The next day the base got news of a large explosion at the co-ordinates of where Ichigo's friends were last seen...

"Ichigo-!" Sang a familiar voice from behind him, thankfully stopping the train of thought before it escalated into something worse. Ichigo turned towards the source of the voice, revealing a bedraggled Kisuke standing with a fake smile plastered on his unshaven face. His slightly too long blonde hair hung over his eyes, obscuring them from view; making up for the lack of hat.

"What do you want hat-and-clogs?" Ichigo sighed, fed up of the fake attitude he kept up, as if it would make everything okay.

"Well if you're going to be rude I'll just keep what I found to myself..." He whined in fake hurt. Ichigo gave him a pointed glare to get him to hurry up. Unperturbed he carried on. "Well, back before all this started -when I was still a captain- I was working on something. My theory was that if a being with enough reiatsu poured all of it into a confined enclosure, it would have the power to rupture the fabric of time."

Ichigo stared at him in disbelief, "You had a theory on time-travel?!" This was ridiculous, even for Kisuke's usual standard. Maybe the war had damaged him more mentally than he thought...

"Yes, Ichigo, I did. Back then, it was just a project to do when I was bored. But, when the war took a turn for the worst, I decided I needed to have a backup plan, incase it got worse. Which it did. And it is exactly what I have working on in my lab' for the past couple of weeks." He stated, suddenly becoming serious. "I have now created a prototype which I think will work."

Ichigo looked at him, wide-eyed in disbelief. It just seemed so impossible and absurd that, coming from Kisuke, it seemed almost believable. A hint of hope sparked in Ichigo's heart. Maybe there is a way to fix all of this. Make sure it never happens in the first place. "Can we use it? Can we really go back in time and stop this from ever happening?"

A sad look settled on Kisuke's features. "Not 'we', Ichigo. Just you. I need to stay behind and enhance your chances of success." He rubbed a hand over his eyes, giving away how tired he was.

"What?! No! If we're doing this, we are doing it together. I wont leave you alone; not after all we have been through and survived." Ichigo raised his voice slightly, scowling slightly at the suggestion.

A small small twisted the older man's lips. He got a slightly reminiscent look before he replied, "Don't worry about me Ichigo! Besides if you decide to do this, if my theory is correct, this time-line will crumple and cease to exist, meaning you won't have to worry about leaving me behind."

-)-(-)-(-

After that Ichigo's mind had been made up. He was going to try and go back in time. He was going to revert back to his reckless ways and do-first-think-later.

He was currently surrounded by a multitude of coloured wires and small flashing lights. His hands were on a small, transparent sphere that seemed to be made of glass. Kisuke was standing to the side flicking some switches and checking dials.

Eventually, he stopped and looked up at Ichigo. "You sure you want to do this?" He asked, looking Ichigo straight in the eyes.

"Yeah" he nodded.

"Good," he said, "I've finished all the preparations. All you need to do is pour all of your reiatsu into the sphere - when I say go. That's all you need to worry about; leave the rest to me."

He nodded again in understanding, not wanting to speak. Waiting for him to say the words.

"Go!" With that, Ichigo poured everything into the sphere. It started to pulse purple towards it's bottom where all the wires connected to it. Sweat started to drip down his forehead, but he ignored it, focusing solely on the task at hand.

His thoughts thoughts started to drift, as they always did. His family. His friends. The soul society. The war. Aizen.

Subconsciously, the amount of Reiatsu Ichigo was outputting dramatically increased. Sparks started to fly around him. He began to feel drowsy and dark spots were appearing on the edges of his vision. Before Ichigo blacked out, he tried desperately to cling onto a happy memory, so if he died, he would at least be able to have that little piece of happiness. The darkness then encompassed Ichigo's vision completely accompanied with a tugging feeling everywhere on his body. The last thing Ichigo heard was the sound of birds singing and the feeling of grass underneath his body.

-)-(-)-(-

A/N: Please comment what you thought. Especially if there is anything I need to improve.

EDIT: 22/10/16 - Fixed perspective issues.


	2. Right Time, Right Place

A/N: I am extremely sorry for the ridiculously long wait for the next chapter! Unfortunately, my interest in Bleach started to wane after I first posted this story. However, hopefully I have rectified that and the ideas will start flowing once again! Thank you so much for the reviews, I have, hopefully, fixed the perspective issues in the first chapter, I face palmed when I realised what happened.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling. Enjoy chapter 2!

A tree. That was the first thing Ichigo saw when he opened his eyes. The green leaves slowly swaying in the slight breeze. Sunlight filtering through the gaps to hit hit his face with a pleasantly warm feeling. He blinked in confusion, briefly wondering whether this was what it felt like to be truly dead. Then the pain hit. Ichigo could say he had felt nothing like it before, but that would be a lie, the only pain greater than what he was feeling now was the sickening all-consuming pain of failing to protect someone. He clenched his eyes closed at the memory and tried to focus on his constricting, spasming muscles.

After a couple of minutes of lying on the ground breathing heavily, Ichigo decided he was well enough to stand up and did so with a loud groan, wincing at the dull throb in his muscles as he moved them. He stretched in vain to try and rid himself of it.

Looking around, he realised he was in a small ditch covered with overgrown grass and twisted roots from nearby trees. He could just see over the edge and saw nothing but rolling green hills and the blue sky the brightest he had ever seen before. The abundance of reishi in the environment indicated that Ichigo was in the soul society. But where? And, more importantly, when?

Ichigo looked down at his body and couldn't see any physical wounds; what he could see, however, was a lack of shihakusho, in it's place a simple blue kimono, Zangetsu wasn't there at his sides though he could still feel their comforting presence from his inner world. He tried to call them forth but it felt like they were at a distance with a thick wall between them. He tried to quell his panic with no avail, his only comfort was that he could at least sense them and access his reiryoku

The peaceful silence around him was broken with an unnatural keening sounding like an animal in distress. Ichigo instinctively crouched into a defensive position and attempted to locate the source of the noise. Rubbing his ears, he slowly moved towards a knot of bushes. As he got closer, he began to see glimpses of a woman kneeling on the ground as if in prayer, clutching a blanket to her chest. Her dark brown hair obscured Ichigo's view of her face but from what he could see of her pale skin, he could tell she had been crying. Her expensive-looking, purple kimono was splattered with mud and foliage from the surrounding forest.

As Ichigo approached he became distracted and didn't notice he had snapped a twig until the woman jerked upwards, large green eyes staring at him in fear. "M-Mimihagi?" she stuttered, clutching the blanket further to her chest. Ichigo widened his eyes in shock, wasn't that the right-hand of the soul king? Out of the corner of his eye he could see a crude wooden carving in the shape of a fist with a red eye in the centre.

Before he could try to tell her he wasn't Mimihagi, she thrust the blanket towards him revealing the sickly face of a toddler with a shock of white hair stuck to his forehead by the sweat of a fever. "Please heal him!" she choked "He- he's going to die unless you can help him."

Ichigo widened his eyes in realisation. This was Ukitake. As a child. How far back was he? Suddenly the boy tensed and started to cough uncontrollably, blood dripping down his mouth. He had to do something - anything to help him. He failed to protect everyone before, he was not going to let anyone die again.

Eyes flaring with resolve he reached out to take the young Ukitake into his arms, cradling him to his chest. What could he do? He had learnt the essential healing kido from Unohana between fights in the war so that he could heal minor cuts on the battlefield. However, this is completely different from a gash in the side. Ichigo frantically searched his memory for something - anything to heal this future captain and his future comrade. The cackle of his hollow- no Zangetsu now- echoed the corners of his mind, his insanity laced through tones of his amusement. Then an idea formed in his mind.

He stood in dilemma for a second, then as the toddlers hacking increased in ferocity, he summoned forth his hollow's instant regeneration and focused it onto young-Ukitake's chest. He was vaguely aware of the woman's gasp of shock, however it felt muffled, as if she was behind a wall. Ichigo watched in fascination as strands of white caressed the boy's chest, seemingly alleviating his pain as his eyes became less fogged and focused on Ichigo's bright hair.

When it receded, the toddler instantly fell into a deep sleep. His now-unobstructed breathing was the only thing keeping Ichigo from thinking he had just killed his future-friend. When he looked up, his eyes met the mothers awe-struck face, she was frozen in shock, but the sight of her peacefully sleeping child made her immediately drop onto her knees - head bowed.

"Thank you, Mimihagi-sama!" she exclaimed, trembling slightly from the relief that no-doubt flooded her system. Ichigo stood dumbfounded, then scowled at the honorific.

"Hey! Come on, get up. Your son's okay now." He murmured, kneeling next to her and placing a comforting hand onto her back. She glanced up at him, tears welling up in her eyes as she reached for the boy still cradled in Ichigo's arms. He handed him to her wordlessly, smiling slightly at the jubilation the woman exhuberated.


End file.
